The Dark Horror on the Horizon
by Bracket the Indecie
Summary: Loki's sentence for his invasion of Earth is Punishment by Ordeal. During this ordeal his once almost-wife, Sigyn, appears to help him through it. No price is too high for Loki to protect his family and his Ordeal is not the end of his story with the Chitauri. Or their master. WIP. Part One of The Lamb and the Knives. Rated for violence.
1. Punishment by Ordeal

Warnings: explicit violence/gore and torture

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**Chapter One – Punishment by Ordeal**

The damp cavern still echoed the sound of Loki's own screaming back to him, even though his voice was ruined and hoarse, unusable to communicate his rage and pain. First had come the ritual humiliation, then the pain and then the isolation before he was left with all three for some indeterminate amount of time, forgotten and in pain.

The humiliation punishment had been painful and undignified, just as they had wanted it to be. Paraded before the Court of the great and good of Asgard then held down by Thor, Tyr, Odin and Sif while an odious little hairy man, Brokk, with bad teeth, pushed a blunted needle through Loki's lips, drawing magical thread through the bleeding punctures, ensuring his lips could move only an inch apart, enough to get a straw through and tiny chunks of food. He had struggled and protested, refusing to let them just have at him without a fight, and he had given Thor and Sif good matching bruises from the heel of his boot as he thrashed wildly on the cold floor of the throne room. He had spat curses on their names and pleaded for them not to go through with it, but they were stony and grim and held him down without any give or comfort. The pain of the first puncture was nothing compared to the second and the unkind pull of his 'seamstress' to bring his screaming mouth to a close. Brokk had taken his time as well, and while he finished his work, Loki could only scream and moan through shut lips and the tears of pain rolled into his hair, the needle had been enchanted so it would burn like a poker through his skin and the thread was not only unbreakable, but ensured the pain from the initial punctures would remain fresh and undiminished for as long as it weaved through his skin. Thor, to his credit, looked rather green by the end of the macabre ritual and had been the only one to hold a limb down without hurting the writhing god, all the others crushed Loki or squeezed too tightly. The eyes of all of Asgard bore down on the trickster, some horrified by the creature they had seen their prince become and some with mirth in their eyes as an unloved wretch got what he deserved. Frigga had not been present.

It was not long before he saw his adoptive mother though, she was waiting with a tear stained face in the dripping, damp cave Loki was all but dragged to by his escort. In her hands were the bloody sinews of the guts of a creature, her pale gown stained and gore spattered across her graceful face. These guts where to be his chains then, for blood magic was one of the oldest in the universe and time accrues power, so even words would bow before blood and Loki's magic would be useless in deference to what was to be used to bind him. He looked around to where they would tie him, perhaps simply lock his limbs together and leave him in a corner to starve, but he had been promised Punishment by Ordeal and he knew the sewing of his mouth was a side show. A rock jutted out of the centre of the cave, rough, but not jagged, as though it were halfway to being smoothed over by the flow of water. Bones, tibias and fibias had been worked into the rock, bleach white with water and age and his legs gave way as he saw it was some grim sacrificial table for him.

Tyr hoisted him up and placed him on his back on the rock, the uneven surface digging into him already before the Allfather took the bloody entrails and wrapped them around the wrists, ankles and throat of his adopted son, whispering the words of powerful magics that would keep his devious prisoner from breaking free. For a moment, Loki felt strangely warm and comforted, the binds had obviously been plucked freshly from the poor beast that had been used and were still warm. A familiar sensation tugged at him, something that was faintly comforting, but he could not place it because the feeling was only ever so faint and he could not concentrate through the punishing haze of his ordeal. His legs were secured before his arms were pulled back uncomfortably and locked into place without any give, if Loki ever wanted to struggle or writhe in pain, the movement would strain and tear the muscles and the trickster was acutely aware of that fact. Odin was making no attempt to hide where the sources of potential pain would be coming from, Loki fancied the Allfather wanted the prince to know so that the weight of his situation would crush his spirit more, if it could not have been so thoroughly crushed already. This was always to be his fate; punished for doing the wrong thing and punished twice as harshly for taking the right path.

The chaining was complete and Odin led the small group out like a funeral procession.

"Thor!" Loki cried, muffled, through the stitches. To part his lips so much sent searing pains through his head, but he had to speak. "My children…" was all he managed to say. Thor looked to Odin.

"Your children will not be punished for your crimes," he promised. Loki's head swung back to look ahead of him, the closest thing to a sigh of relief his mangled mouth could manage. He did not see the look of hatred Thor passed to his one-eyed father. The rock to Loki's prison ground into the stone floor with an ear crunching scrape before there was total silence. Even his thoughts about the silence in which he found himself seemed to ring loudly and bounce from the stone walls across his face and all around him. He gingerly tested his tethers, the angle of his legs was such that it would require strength he did not have to move them so awkwardly and his shoulders protested when he tried to bring up his hands. The sinews around his throat allowed him to move his head from side to side to a limited extent, but he could not move his head up or forwards without his binding throttling him, cutting deep into his neck.

A grating noise of rock on rock sounded above him and a small hole of light she through the hatch at the top. Odin's grim eye looked through it for a moment before moving away and Loki took a deep breath: his ordeal was coming. The light was soon blocked by something coming down the hole, something wet and slithering.

A beady, glinting eye came into view, a wide, gaping maw and long, curved teeth hanging from a slack jaw, a serpent. It was gold and emerald coloured, something so brilliantly coloured had to be venomous. It stopped some way above Loki's face, his eyes wide and fixed upon the creature that had been sent to torture him and the shaft of light from the outside was extinguished with deafening finality.

The snake did not move, that is to say, it did not move of its own accord, it swung slightly as though tied by a string on its tail and as the minutes passed, Loki became certain that the creature was no longer alive. He frowned, he wasn't sure what Odin had in mind by tying him down and hanging a dead snake over his head, but that didn't stop him from worrying about what was to come as he knew it would had to be horrific. Perhaps the serpent was the bait for some terrible monster that would come and eviscerate him, whereupon he would be left to heal until it was unleashed upon him again. This and thousand other possibilities, each more brutal and savage than the last until something hit him in the face, a searing pain in his cheek which felt as though it had stabbed right the way through his head and a sprig of echoing pain shuddered down his body in sympathy. He looked around, trying to figure out what had stabbed him, whether there was some invisible torturer in the cave with him when it happened again. His lungs expelled an involuntary grunt of pain as it hit him again, close to the last site of impact, his cheek feeling as though it were aflame and his mind was fuzzed by the shot of pain.

It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, pain that did not diminish, that seared through his body and seemingly right through his soul as well, knocking dents in his mental resolve that he had tried to build up far more quickly than he hoped would be the case. He was looking into what could quite possibly break him.

Looking into it. He opened his eyes and looked at the snake, its jaw hinged open and a pearlescent bed of moisture gathering on the tip of a razor fang. When the liquid dropped, it splashed on Loki's face and he grunted wildly with pain as it splashed to just under his eye into the sensitive flesh there. The swinging serpent ensured that the drops of venom spattered on different parts of his face, but the pain always shivered its way through his entire body like fiery eels. The drip was steady, a disgusting rhythm that was already driving him wild. It would have been going on for two minutes or twenty thousand years, suddenly time had no meaning when he was in horrific anticipation of every jolt of unceasing pain, pain he could not become accustomed or hardened to, a pain every bit as searing and cutting as the first time it ripped through him.

Time didn't mean anything. The venom drip, drip, dripped onto his face, sometimes burning through his eyes if they weren't closed, sometimes on the raw sides of his face, his lips, already burning from the stitching. One time he screamed enough that his lips parted and invited in a drop of the agony venom into his mouth, burning through his tongue and already raw throat. His entire existence had reduced to the pain that seared through him and waiting for it to come and tear through his soul again.

The venom had dripped into his mouth a few times now, each time provoking enough pain that his body would rack with spasms and convulse, pulling at his tortured shoulders and stretch the muscles out of the joint a little further. There was something about the taste that was jogging at his memory, though it was difficult to place as his conscious mind was saturated with raw pain, it had room for little else. He wasn't sure how long it took him to realise, perhaps a day, perhaps a year, but eventually the recognition clicked in his mind and he ran cold, the kind of cold that was so empty it took the edge off the pain caused by the venom. The venom pierced so readily and caused such intense pain because of what Loki shared with the serpent, the pain was born of a desecrated bond between parent and child. This was the last form of Vali, one of his most mischievous sons. This meant that the tethers of entrails that were chaining him to the rock were forged of the parental bond too and suddenly he came to know that Narfi's sinews were wrapped around his limbs, warm and comforting. The horror took a few moments to sink in and when the next drop of venom hit his face a roar of anguish and devastation ripped out of him, uncaring of the pain to his arms or the stretch of the puncture wounds as he strained the thread sealing his mouth.

"ODIN!" he screamed, pain and rage racking his body, convulsing as he tried to rip through his bonds, tear the thread or tear his lips, any way he could get out of here and get to Odin's throat, that wicked, depraved, beast of a man who had so cleverly hid the truth from Loki, whether it was about the prince's past or how much his children had been accepted by Asgard.

He thrashed and yelled for days. Years. Seconds. Every cell in his body screamed horror, vengeance and sorrow at his fate and the fate of his children. Frenzied, he wondered what had become of his other offspring; Fenrir and Jormangandr were already bound and suffering for their crimes (mostly the crime of existing) and he was sure Odin would not do anything against Hel, as she was a queen and had special protections. He had never liked the fact that he was forced to agree to Hel's exile, disguised as a deferential offer of respect, as it meant that he had only seen his daughter a handful of times since her coronation. But now it would be protecting her from a fate like that of the rest of his children and therefor was worth it.

Loki didn't love much in this world, but he had the love of a father for all of his children, no matter how monstrously they had manifested and he had to hand it to Odin, the Allfather really had hit on the one way to truly break Loki's spirit. When he had earned himself a position of power, regardless of which throne it had happened to be, he had planned to break his children free of their own chains and have then at his side to inherit the glorious empire he would make. How far he had fallen, and his dreams had fallen further. His rage and pain had never been so all-consuming, not even in the pit of that stinking miasma that had clouded his mind so thoroughly.

'_Well played Odin, you can see me broken, lying in the entrails and spittle of my dead sons. I hope you can my hatred, eyes that once held love and adoration are now cold and burning for you, Allfather. You have destroyed what I hold dear, so I shall destroy your precious things, because I won't be here forever'. _He swore the oath to himself as he shuddered and moaned with the pain of the ever-dripping venom, his face wet with poison and tears, but hell-bent on an exhaustive way to make this adoptive father pay for his crimes.

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Hello all! So here I am again, something rather different from Tea Like Yours if you had read that, and it's sort of nice branching off into a new fandom too :) I would like to warn everyone reading this that this is very much a work in progress, so while I said that I would not post anything that I had not already finished/was close to finishing, I wanted to get at least some of this up. Hopefully this will keep my butt in order and make me write! So yes, work in progress warning for this story. This is also up on AO3, and I plan to post on both sites simultaneously, so no one should get the updates faster than the other. I'd love to know what you think of this and I'm looking forward to putting up the next chapter soonish. Thanks :) x


	2. Love's Reprieve

**Chapter Two – Love's Reprieve**

Loki wasn't sure how he was still screaming, but somehow he was, a jolting keen when a droplet of burning venom dripped like acid on his face, lips and eyes. He was sure though that it wasn't just the pain he was yelling at anymore, there was so much more than just the agony in his physical body that tore his tender heart into chunks; his slaughtered sons, the fiancée who left him without a word, his false family who showered him with empty words of love and the dark horror that stood on the horizon, blocking the sun and creeping closer. It only fuelled his anger further that his rage, which felt so explosive, was confined by the tethers it could escape to vent and it had built up inside him so powerfully that he felt he could die with all the rage and hate behind his eyes.

Then something very strange happened: the venom did not drip onto his face at the expected moment. He was hesitant to open his eyes because there was little worse pain than having that frightful liquid drop into his eyes but after at least a minute (or at what he thought was a minute) nothing happened. A soft female voice spoke to him.

"Don't worry Loki, you're safe from the venom now," she said gently. The pain the venom brought him was replaced by a horrific longing. He knew the voice, bittersweet memories springing to mind at the sound of it. He reluctantly opened his eyes and saw the soft curves of loose blond curls hanging over him, a hand holding a bowl above his face, even the splash of venom collecting in the bottom striking the wood sounding like ball bearings dropping into a steel bowl. He looked up to her face, as fair as the day he brought her back to Asgard amidst a triumph where he was the one praised for a great victory over a strong enemy, not his brother, and he returned to a parade of honours, spoils and a beautiful wife-to-be. She smiled gently, she could see her eyes mapping the new scarring on his face.

"Why?" he croaked; a loaded question with several meanings.

"The most deserved question. I'll start with the meaning to that question that you mean. You mean why did I leave you in the middle of the night after you had brought me to Asgard with the intention of marrying me?" Loki nodded minutely, his feelings of rage simmering down into conflict and confusion and anticipation of the answer to the question that had plagued him for the last few hundred years.

"I knew you were a slipskin and I was curious about what your real skin was. I always thought that your visage as it is now was not your true one, after all, you looked so completely different from Thor and his parents that I wondered if you had changed your appearance to distinguish yourself from him more." Loki gave her an incredulous look. "I was curious," she offered by way of excuse. "So, when you were sleeping I cast a spell on you that would reveal your true form to me." His eyes widened, hurt and rejection shook through him visibly. She soothed him with a tender caress to his sore face, her touch cool and calming. "I expected your hair to go blonde, maybe a change in eyes. Imagine my surprise when your skin changed colour!" Loki betrayed his self-loathing at his Jotnar nature by looking away from Sigyn. She turned his face back to her.

"I didn't leave because you are Jotnar, Loki, please believe that of me." She paused for a moment with a quiet laugh, as though laughing at some kind of in-joke. Loki glared. She caught his stare and cleared her throat, her face falling back into sincerity as she continued with her story. Before I could wake you and ask more questions a guard appeared in our chambers and said that Odin demanded my immediate presence. I could hardly say no to the father of the man I was intended for." Loki snorted and she smiled. "It's obvious he is not your father by blood, but he was your father nonetheless, and the king of the realm I was coming to live in. He was alone and I knew he had seen that I had discovered your true nature. As I crossed the threshold, my own spell that bound me to Aesir form was undone and he saw what I was and not a citizen of Asgard rescued. He explained why he had taken you and that you did not know about your heritage." Loki huffed through his nose with burning hatred for Odin. Here her gentle face took a slightly sharper edge as her own anger bled through into her expression.

"I was presented with a choice. I would be helped leave Asgard that very moment and taken, with a secret escort, to a realm of my choice to live quietly as I had before I came to Asgard, or I could stay in Asgard and be exposed as an intruder and threat and be punished to the fullest extent of Asgardian law, which would mean harm to me and my child. I didn't realise it, but Odin told me I was pregnant." Loki's face scrunched up for a moment as he comprehended what had been said to him. Another child! He had been blessed with another beautiful offspring, a feeling of joy and pride was knocked over by overwhelming sadness that he had never got to even meet his child, nor raise it. Again. Once more Odin had taken his child away from him, denying him the full joy of fatherhood. The only one of his children he had been able to raise from an infant was Hel, and while those years were some of the best in his life, they were always tainted by the fact that he could not bring her mother home to live with them as a family as Sigyn was not Asgardian and would not be allowed to court a prince of the golden realm, let alone bear and raise his child.

"Odin told me that there was no way he could let a –" she abruptly stopped herself and blinked back a tear as she tried to keep back the tide of emotions welling up in her. Loki snarled, even through his stiches, knowing that Odin must have damned her as a filthy whore or somesuch name meant to demean and degrade her into complying with his will. "I could not stay in Asgard, I was a threat and he could not risk me telling you about your true origins. I did the only thing I could. I had him send me back to Alfheim. I waited for you there. I waited for fifty years to see if you could sneak back to the light world and I could offer you the explanation you deserved, but Odin kept you on a tight leash from that moment. You had only a very few closely supervised trips away from Asgard after that, did you not?" Loki nodded, horror in his eyes at his adoptive father's actions. "He probably fed you some grey truths about withdrawing from the affairs of other realms and concentrating on Asgard and how the age of interference was over," she said, a nasty snarl on her lips. Loki had rarely seen her look that angry or cruel but if anyone deserved such vitriol it was that one-eyed liar. A growl escaped his throat, unbelieving of all the cruelties and injustices Odin had rained upon Loki who had done nothing to warrant such treatment; and the Allfather had the nerve to punish Loki for his actions when the grey-beard deserved to be in this cave as much as the trickster god.

"I am sorry, my love, but I need to empty the dish, the venom will fall upon you afresh for a few moments." Loki's eyes flew open, wild and afraid, begging her not to let it happen, pleading with his eyes to not be subjected to that savage agony again. She afforded him a sorrowful look and then took the bowl away, leaving a drop of the horrid venom to fall all the way to his skin, causing the sensation of burning and tearing in his face as it hit his cheek and then slid down the side of his face. He howled in pain, his screams edged with such fierce anger as he realised his rage had not abated, but had simply lain in wait. Sigyn was gone for three drops of the venom, a time that may as well have been a year to Loki as time easily lost its meaning under the influence of the wicked toxin.

"I am so sorry," Sigyn said, sadly tracing his fresh wounds with her cool hands, taking the edge of the pain away. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she felt so overwhelmingly pained to see him like this. "Perhaps I can cheer you a little with good news?" she said, stroking his face affectionately. He looked sceptically up at her. "The child we made on our short time on Asgard together grew healthily to term. I bore a beautiful boy," she said, a proud smile gracing her features. "Like us, he has a slipskin nature, so much so that when he first came into the world, he transformed into his other shape, surrounded himself in an egg and demanded to be born again," she chuckled at the memory and Loki's face was torn between amused and incredulous.

"I had to swallow the egg and wait another few years before he decided it was ready before he put me through the pain of labour again. But he hatched with no problems and I would have born him a thousand times for that alone. He is called Svali, and you would be proud of his strength of arm as well as his abilities with seidr." Her face radiated pride and Loki couldn't help but stretch his mouth into a smile. Sigyn slipped her free hand into his.

"Odin did not get his hands on this one, my love, at last a child reared free of him. I hope one day he will meet his father," she said and Loki nodded, indicating that he would like that very much. "Odin cannot keep you here forever, and if he plans to then he will have no say when Thor takes the throne. You will see your sons and daughter again, Loki, I promise you," she swore. Suddenly, she looked up, as though alarmed and her eyes filled with a little fear; a horrid contrast to the love that had been shining through them a moment ago.

"I must go. I can only remain so long before I am discovered. I will return when I can," she said urgently and kissed his forehead quickly before vanishing. Loki had a moment to feel the disappointment of her disappearance before being lanced with pain from his son's venom and his torture resumed, but now he felt stronger in the knowledge the rest of his family was safe, only he suffered now and that brought a little comfort. The pain lashes him again and he screamed.

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Hello again :) Thank you for reviewing and favouriting! I wasn't sure if people would like this particular offering, but I'm glad some do :) There will be mistakes in here as I do not have a beta, but if anyone could point out any that have crept in I would appreciate it! Also, please do let me know what you think of this chapter; I am trying to retain something of a mythological feel whilst keeping a grounding in the tangibility and realism of the movie-verse.


	3. The Dark Horror on the Horizon

**Hello all, sorry for the delay, this is a work in progress, so things are slow in terms of updates. I am continuing with this and am writing several chapters ahead so there is plenty more guaranteed to come. Enjoy!**

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**Chapter Three – The Dark Horror on the Horizon**

Loki tears of pain ran freely down his face as there was no point hiding them from a non-existent audience until the pain ceased again.

"Hello again," Sigyn said and Loki's lungs sucked in a deep breath of relief that she had returned to him and was removing the pain once more. "I brought a couple of things for you," she said and he opened his eyes to her gently smiling visage. He felt relived enough to go to the effort and pain of returning her smile, albeit briefly. She touched his face quickly as if to prove to him she was real before resting the other bowl she was holding on his chest. She picked out a piece of fruit that had been chopped into very small pieces and gently pushed it through his lips with cool fingers. The piece was small enough to slip through the stiches without requiring him to open his mouth very much at all and sweet apple tumbled into his mouth onto his parched tongue, instantly refreshing his stale mouth and the juice from the divine fruit wetted his dry throat which he hadn't realised was so raw and sore until now. She fed him the tiny morsels of Idunn's sacred fruit, enough to refresh him and allow his body to continue to weather the venom's ravages without beginning to deteriorate as he had been on the verge of doing. She tipped the juice that had collected in the bottom of the bowl into his mouth and he drank greedily.

"Thanks," he managed to say, the thread tearing at his lips as he said the word, but his voice sounded much smoother and cleaner than it had done since he first entered this forsaken cave and was made to screech and scream at frequent intervals every day.

"I have something else from you. I went on something of a crime spree in Asgard last night, stealing a apple from Idunn and this, a raven's skull from Odin's aviary," she said proudly, taking the tiny bleached bone from her pocket and holding it up. She took a piece of thread that was curled up inside the skull and very carefully threaded it around the most prominent stitch on Loki's face, tying it to the bone and resting it on the nearest flat surface – his chest.

"What are you doing?" the skull squawked and Loki twisted his neck to be able to see it. "Is that thing talking?" it said again, little beak flapping like a moving mouth.

"Think the words you wish to say, the skull will say it," Sigyn said, although she knew Loki had figured it out before she had got to her second word, her lover was hardly an idiot.

"A lovely piece of magic, where did you learn how to do something like that?" Loki asked through the skull. It was wholly weird for him to be thinking the words as though he was actually speaking them but to hear them in a strange shrill voice instead of his own smooth tone.

"Hel gave me the idea, she uses something similar to open the mouths of the dead who have had their voices taken away by funerary rites," she replied.

"There is something different about you, Sigyn," the skull cawed; Loki was clearly happy at having his speech restored and was taking the opportunity to ask all the questions that had been locked up behind the stitching of his mouth. She raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Your voice…it's much higher than it used to be," he said. To his surprise, she blushed a deep rose colour and looked away in embarrassment.

"I…worked on changing it and speaking more like an Asgardian woman," she mumbled, hoping in vain that his questions would not go further.

"Freyja was just being a jealous old bag, you shouldn't pay her any mind," he told her. She did not look back up as she burned with the memory of her glorious introduction to Asgard, on the arm of Loki after having been 'rescued' from the clutches of a mighty beast who he had slain. She had drank and made merry at the feasting table of Odin's great hall, enrapturing the present company with the tale (a total fabrication) of how she had come to be in monster's possession and how Loki's great strength and skill won the day and her hand. Most of the Aesir roared appreciatively of the tale which hit all their favourite story buttons of romantic love and incredible exploits, but Freyja has worn an ugly and jealous look on her face all evening at having been usurped, even if just for an evening, by the arrival of this new woman and had teased Sigyn relentlessly for her voice. Sigyn had always had a deep voice, even when they had met in Alfheim and she was in the form of a light elf, her voice was distinct from the usual higher fare of the other maidens and it had charmed Loki instantly. It was a very pleasing voice and could be put to great sensual use, it was a sound of sophisticated beauty, and certainly not worthy of the ridicule Freyja had handed out on that night.

It seemed that Sigyn was affected enough by it to learn how to change her lovely natural voice and make it something more usual and less likely to stand out in a crowd.

"It sounds more feminine," she said by way of excuse.

"I'm hardly one to talk considering my voice is currently that of a long deceased bird, but your natural voice is beautiful and would bring me far more comfort than this strange tone you've adopted since." She made eye contact with him and smiled weakly.

"Ever the charmer," she said, her voice lowered by controlled degrees. She looked around and Loki wondered if their time was up already.

"I haven't got long, so I need to spoil the mood and ask you something." She was tense and closed off to him now and he fell into similar seriousness. "The _Chitauri_?" she said, disgust painted all over her face. Her look and the way she found it difficult to get the horrid word out of her mouth made it quite clear where she stood on this issue. Loki studied her intensely, looking for her motive for this questioning, and he wondered if she was a very clever interrogation technique. He would not put it past Odin to seek out Loki's old flame, coerce her co-operation and get her to 'appear' at the moment his spirit seemed about to break and make him spill his secrets by taking her into his confidence. Then he wondered what the end game would be if this was the case and what he would possibly have to lose; after all he still believed that his invasion of earth had been the right thing to do, and while it had not gone quite to plan, he had still achieved the most important goal: the tesseract had not fallen in the hands of the Chitauri's master. It's not as though Odin could possibly punish him more harshly for revealing the kind of despicable company he lowered himself to keep while he struck bargains with the slimy Chitauri. But he knew he could never be too careful when it came to something the Allfather was potentially involved in and Loki knew that as accomplished a witch as Sigyn was, Odin was better and could be influencing her. He thought it best to test the waters first.

"Take your skyglass and look, at night and you will see a new star near the constellation of the gilded bull. Take a very close look and you should find something of an answer to your question," the skull cawed. Sigyn frowned in confusion; she was clearly turning the gears in her mind trying to figure out what he could be alluding to.

"I will, my love. For now I must leave you again, I'm sorry," she said sadly and with deft fingers, untied the skull and string with one hand then gave him a kiss on the sore side of his face, her sweet lips numbing his wounds for a moment until she vanished and the venom was free to burn new gashes into his skin.

Sigyn did not return for a very long time, so long in fact that Loki wondered if she had been a hallucination brought on by delirium at the pain and the venom he had swallowed inadvertently. There had been no other contact with the world outside the cave; Odin, Frigga nor Thor had once been in by the boulder that blocked the entrance to the cave or the small hole above him from which they had lowered the corpse of his son to hover over him like this. He had no proof of her presence at all, the bowl she used to catch the venom was not around as far as he could see and there was no reflective surface to prove that some of his old wounds had healed a little from her touch and kiss until all he was left with was his hope and faith that it had been his almost-wife.

What, in the real world outside the cave, turned out to be months later, Sigyn returned to the side of the man she loved, perhaps foolishly. Loki positively burst into tears as he felt reprieve from the stabbing gashes of the venom and the seidr-rich presence of the woman he would recognise in any skin, whether her Aesir one, as she wore in her visits to him, or her light elf form that he had first met and fallen in love with. For a moment he was consumed with relief and joy to know that the pain had stopped for a few precious minutes and a comforting voice and touch was next to him.

His joy was rather interrupted by the look on her face when he finally was able to open his eyes again and allow the second or two they needed to adjust to the light. She was tired, drawn and miserable; her hands were filthy with grime and blood, the spatter of the gore staining her clothes. Her hair was awry and out of place, matted and knotted in several areas, sweat and mud dirtied her face in a most unflattering way. For a moment neither of them said anything, Sigyn looked shell-shocked, wide-eyed and afraid to speak lest her words not do justice to the things she had witnessed. Loki allowed her a minute to try and speak, but time was being wasted and he did not want to spoil his pain-free minutes with silence when all he wanted to do was recite every last word he knew and then sing them. He grunted to get her attention and when she turned her eyes to meet his (and how cold and afraid were her orbs), and nodded towards the skull in her pocket. She snapped out of her reverie almost instantly and began to tend to his needs, exercising excellent dextrous ability by tying the cord to the botch-job sewing piece on Loki's lips without appearing to need much help or make the suffering god too uncomfortable.

"What happened to you?" he asked as soon as the last knot was tied and his voice flowed into the raven skull and spoke in a near-comical scratchy cawing voice.

"I just escaped, I had to come here as soon as I could to tell you that you were right and I'm sorry I ever doubted you," she said, a little breathless and still somewhat panicked. "I looked into the night sky like you said and I saw something, a darkness blocking the star of the bull's eye."

"How close is it?"

"I travelled there," she said, her low voice shaking and full of reproach for having made the journey. Loki looked scandalised.

"Why?!" he said with his real voice, the stitches pulling painfully on his mouth.

"I was curious, you would not have directed me towards it if it was not important. I had to understand, Loki; I could not bear to tell Svali that his father allied himself with those disgusting Chitauri because he was simply feeling bitter towards Asgard. That's one of the reasons I came to find you, I had to know that this was just another one of your clever schemes. When I saw that the star had vanished from the sky and that something was blocking it I called in a favour owed to me and travelled by seidr to the obstruction." She paused for a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order.

"The journey was disorienting," she explained as she held out a little longer to finish her story. He nodded slightly in understanding, a much as his tethers would allow. "When I arrived it wasn't a comet or meteor, it was a hive of ships moving together. They were docked together like the sections of a wasp nest, with any drones circling the mass and it was burgeoning with your old allies," she said and Loki snarled angrily.

"They were _not_ my allies," he said shortly.

"You could have fooled me," she shot back, equally as curtly.

"That was the point," he said, eyeing her with disappointment; he had expected her to know him better than this, not to fall into the same lie he had woven for everyone else. He supposed that sometimes he was an even better liar than he realised. Sigyn's hand left his for a moment and drew in the air in faint pale lines of magic the symbols she had seen on the sides of each ship and on the chest of every Chitauri soldier. Loki whimpered involuntarily at the sight of it and looked away, it was already burned into his mind; he had no wish to see it more than necessary. Sigyn quickly waved the smoky lines out of existence with a frantic wave of her hand and then clasped Loki's again. He squeezed back.

"But how did you get in such a state? Surely a matter of teleporting there and back did not ruffle you so?" he asked.

"No, when I recovered from the shock of what I had discovered when I arrived, I snuck inside." Loki's eyes bulged, his jaw muscles moving as though he wanted to say something, but had lost all idea of how to put words to it. "Entering a hatch was childs play," she said, "and because it was one of the core structures there was very light security inside, no one was expecting an intruder would be able to sneak on board without something lighting up. I did notice seidr sensors though once I got close to the core interior of the ship and had to drop all my usual wards and skin to be able to navigate the halls unseen. It took me some time to get to the centre of the ship and found out what he wants… I always thought it was strange that you weren't able to take Midgard with the number of Chitauri you had; you're a master strategist, you could have taken Earth with fifty troops, Loki. I have to say, you lost very convincingly," she said, her face beaming with surprise and awe as she was realising the scale of Loki's scheme. The trickster had cause to look a little smug.

"The Midgardians are no doubt feeling very proud of themselves. Even Thor did not suspect that the conquest of the middle realm was not my ultimate goal. But I did it, I won. The tesseract is lost to the Chitauri and back in the hands of Odin black-heart; he is a monster and cruel to those who fall out of his favour, but he at least will use it for better means than the Chitauri." Sigyn sighed and sadness fell over her features once more.

"I wish they could know this, that they were aware of your sacrifice and cleverness," she said, stroking his hand. "I must empty the bowl, hold strong my love," she said and was away for three drops of the venom which pieced his body through his face and ran sympathetic pain through his chest and down his strained legs.

"They would never believe me, not even Odin, the master of lies," he said as soon as Sigyn had returned and stemmed the never-ending flow of terrible pain.

"I saw some kind of pedestal made for it, I believe they intend to use it to channel its power into focussed vessels, but beyond that I could not say for I was discovered and had to make a run for it. I had to fight my way out until I could return to the spot Alfheim's magic had deposited me in order to call them to take me back."

"Stark's weapon killed all of the Chitauri who had dealt with me, they won't know the tesseract is within the nine realms."

"And meanwhile you suffer…" she said, pressing their heads together, her arm twisting strangely to hold the bowl in place while she knelt over him. She couldn't maintain that position for long, so she quickly kissed his marred face and sat up straight again.

"Sigyn," he said, hesitating. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but thought the better of it and waited for him to continue. "I can't trust Odin's word on anything. He said that my children would not be punished for my crimes, but Narfi and Vali's fate proves otherwise. Our children are my only ones left, please protect them from Odin," he pleaded.

"Of course. My time is up, I have to go. I will return when I can," she pressed one last kiss to his bloodied lips before vanishing and leaving a precious few seconds of cool, beautiful feeling in her wake before the venom sliced through his reprieve and reminded Loki that despite his clever scheme and service to the nine realms, he was going to be rewarded with his horrific torture of the searing pain and slimy feel of his son's entrails cutting into his sore limbs for an indefinite period of time, perhaps forever.

Sigyn had thought she was doing him a favour by bringing some of Idunn's special apples to aid his healing and prolong his godlike life as well as ensuring he did not die of starvation or thirst, but perhaps her kindness was misplaced. If prolonging his life merely meant prolonging this horrific torture then maybe he should refuse her next offer of apples which he was pretty certain would come again soon.

When the next droplet of bloody venom stabbed him just below the eye his anger flared and in doing so, hardened his resolve. He had to stay alive to get out of here, because he would find a way if Odin had no plan of releasing him at all and then he would get revenge on the man he once called father for the crimes committed again Loki No-Sire. There would always be time enough Odin to be made to repent and Loki would prove that he was made of sterner stuff than the one-eyed monstrosity.

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Hope you enjoyed that :) Things are going to change plenty for Loki in the next chapter, so I hope to see you there!


	4. The Charity of Odin

**Chapter Four – The Charity of Odin**

Sigyn had only visited once since she had revealed she had gone chasing off after the hive of ships belonging to the Chitauri. She had not stayed for as long as usual, the few scant minutes they had together cut down ever more by an unrevealed time-pressure, and she had mostly stopped by to say that she had checked up on their children and none of them had suffered any reprisals for their father's behaviour, with the obvious exclusion of Vali and Narfi. The only possible slight exception to this was Hel, who on a formal visit to Asgard was taunted about her father being such a disgrace whereupon she threatened to whither the speaker's genitalia to near-death and immediately departed from the golden realm in a trail of offended indignity.

Loki wished and hoped that Sigyn had not been caught, that Odin or Heimdall had not seen her secret meetings with him and overheard the personal things they had spoken about. He knew her to be wily and savvy, after all those were qualities that had attracted him to her in the first place, but he also knew that Odin was in not short supply of them himself, even though no one called him the god of lies and deception to his face. No, Loki had been lumped with those titles, but he would always stipulate that he learned from the best.

His thoughts, as ever, were punctuated by the stabbing pain, like a white hot needle searing through his head and shooting down his whole body, with the steady drip of the venom suspended above him. His mind always shot blank when the droplet found purchase in his abused skin, the pain pushing out any series of thoughts for the moments when it burned as hot as a star and he cried out with a raw voice, tears of pain often running into his hair.

What he did not expect was to hear a grinding sound, rock upon rock grating together and a slither of light entered the dull chamber. A grunt of exertion came in through the gap and Loki craned his head as far as the sinewy bonds would allow, but was distracted again by the drip of liquid agony that bore into his face. He roared in pain, unable to open his mouth to expel the sound properly, so it rumbled through him like a wave of rage, the feelings of resentment back and fit to burst. The rock at the mouth of the cave was finally wrenched back and for a mad moment Loki wondered if Sigyn had come to spring him loose and take him to hide in one of the many secret places she knew in the nine realms. The person who entered had fair hair, but that was where the similarity to his beloved ended; burly Thor, with his armour, hammer and hair now long enough to braid trudged inside, his footsteps sounding odd and flat when all Loki had had to listen to for the last who-know-how-long was the drip of venom and his own screams.

Loki wondered what the thunderer could possibly want down here, his expression was grotesquely sympathetic to the point of pity, possibly the only expression he had seen Thor afford him since their battle on the bifrost bridge. It was not in Thor's nature to taunt a fallen man, and he knew sentiment would be keeping him from shooting barbs at Loki while he was afforded punishment like this. Perhaps he had news, maybe Sigyn had been caught after all and he had come to tell Loki that she was being sent down here to join him; the trickster's own mind betrayed him as he ran through so many scenarios in the few seconds he had before the next splash of venom took him by surprise and he opened his mouth unthinkingly to scream. He felt the stitches tear into his sensitive flesh before he felt the pain sear his lips and make his mouth throb, the warm blood quickly cooling as it trickled down his chin and throat, dying quickly and making him feel sticky. Thor responded to his brother's cries of torturous pain and rushed over to Loki, cupping his hands and putting them above the trickster's face. Loki's shot him a confused look as he wondered what Thor was doing, but when the golden prince of Asgard shuddered and whimpered in pain, his hands shaking, the younger 'brother' realised that Thor was catching the venom in his bare hands.

In that moment Loki's whole world and every resentful thought he had let fester in his mind about Thor seemed to be overhauled. Thor, idiot that he was, was willingly taking the soul-rendering pain of the venom to spare his beloved adopted-sibling the pain of it. The fact that he had remained in place after tasting the first drop of the mad agony that liquid caused was proof he was willing to suffer for Loki and that Thor's large heart had not forgotten him. Thor smiled weakly at the naked gratitude on Loki's face, an expression that plainly stated he was re-thinking everything he thought about Thor. In that moment of pure relief, when no sour thoughts interrupted his feelings, Loki understood that Thor would have to love him in some capacity to go through this, it could not be something he would endure for any pathetic stranger and he remembered a slither of the bond they used to share as brothers. It made him tired, bone tired of the hatred that had poisoned him for so long and, while it would take time to learn to trust Thor again and consider opening himself up, this went a long way to a good start.

Loki's feelings of hopeful joy were largely squashed as more people entered the cave, namely one Odin Allfather. Loki himself was surprised at the surge of raw disgust and loathing he felt at the sight of the one-eyed king of Asgard and, despite his throbbing face, managed to twist his lips into a snarl.

Odin sought to make no great ceremony out of this, and just as well for Thor whose hands were now shaking considerably as he held the venom cupped in his hands.

"Loki, you are to be released from here and sent to Midgard. Its people have many questions for you and they deserve the answers they seek. I hold myself satisfied that you have served your punishment for your crimes against Asgard and my royal house, so when you have completed whatever sentence the humans judge to be worthy I shall bring no more misery to you. Unless you bring it to me again first." As he spoke, his voice curiously not as pompous as Loki seemed to remember it, Tyr and Frigga quickly untied the stinking entrails from around his extremities. Frigga's hands gently and slowly pulled his arms back into their regular position by his side, and he moaned in pain as the abused muscles contracted and squeezed in ways they had not done so for a very long time. Tyr, a little less kindly, helped him to sit up. The bravest of the Aesir host made a move to snatch the snake down from the ceiling to stop Thor's suffering as now he shook quite violently, but Loki hissed and struggled; he would not have some witless brute handle the body of his son! Frigga seemed to understand and moved towards it herself, gently pressing its hinged jaw closed and then using a tiny spark of magic to cut the rope it had been tied to. The serpent fell into her hands and she curled it respectfully into a square of cloth to carry it out safely. Thor emptied the burning contents of his hands into the corner of the cave, hissing and groaning as the liquid ran like fire over his skin. His roughened hands had been pinked, and a blister had formed on one of them, where the venom had first struck.

Despite this, he shook his head to Tyr when the other man offered to carry the quarry and Thor slung his arm around Loki to help him up and to walk. The process of standing on his own feet found Loki with more trouble than he had wished for, since his legs had been pulled back and made to be still for so long that his muscles had forgotten what bearing even his decreased weight was like. It did not go unnoticed by Loki how Thor held him; close with Thor slightly in front of Loki as though shielding him from something that might jump out at them. Sensing his 'brother's' tension, he surveyed the scene with intelligent eyes, noting the unspoken signs around him of what might have transpired in the outside world. Tyr was clearly there simply as a guard and part of his duty when he had helped drag Loki down to this forsaken place in the first instance, his rigid stance and emotionless eyes spoke of duty and nothing more. Thor's warmth and protectiveness told him that the thunderer perceived a threat to the man he still regarded as his younger sibling. What was most telling was how Thor stood so very far away from Odin, who was alone at the mouth of the cave; even Frigga, his loyal and loving wife for most of their lives, stood at the back of the small party, a little grim faced and making her position quite clear – not with Odin on this point.

The king huffed slightly and led them out to begin the cruel staircase that Loki was not looking forward to using as a re-introduction to walking. Thor easily bore his weight however and mostly carried the younger god up the steps until they reached the light of the golden realm, the sunshine blinding Loki for a few long moments. He had been chained in a dull cave for so long, the strength of the Asgardian sun was overwhelming.

"Take him to the chambers prepared. He is to wash, bathe and ready himself for his journey to Midgard on the morrow." Loki narrowed his eyes at how Odin could not even address him to his face and spoke as though the trickster was not even there. He thought he had truly fallen far in the Allfather's esteem, if the stolen Jotun child was ever held in regard at all.

"I leave this in your capable hands, Thor," Frigga said, before Odin could make comment or command. His single eye looked perturbed for a moment, but wisely said nothing that would antagonise his already upset wife. Tyr took this, accurately, to mean that he should go and Frigga stared expectantly at Odin.

"I must return to court," he said, in the closest thing Odin would ever come to a mumble and walked away briskly.

"I am glad you are from that dreadful place," the queen said softly, and while she was glad, she could not bring herself to smile at the state of the young god she still considered in her heart to be her son. "I know there are no words I can say to you for what you have suffered. If one day you can forgive me it will be more than I deserve," she said, her gentle eyes now watery and sorrowful. "Take these scissors, Thor, they will cut those wicked stitches." She passed him a pair of delicate golden sewing shears that clearly had a razor's edge to them and he put them away carefully in a pouch on his belt. Frigga leaned forward to her youngest and hesitantly, for fear of him rejecting her comfort, placed a kiss on his cheek in the most motherly of ways.

She swiftly departed before they could see her spill the tears that had been threatening in her eyes and Thor gently guided Loki round to a different corridor, down to the royal residence inside the palace.

"Odin-king wanted has had a room prepared for you, but I choose to ignore him. I will take you to my quarters instead where the bath will be hot and the bed is soft; I will not have you given a paltry room after such a debased cave as you have been confined to," Thor announced. Loki raised his eyebrows, surprised at Thor's apparently easy defiance of his father-king.

Thor's quarters were not as he remembered them; there were significantly less trophies from his wild hunting days mounted on the walls and fewer of the display weapons in brackets. There were a few pictures in glass frames, no doubt gifts from his Midgardian friends and Loki felt a low surge of jealousy that Thor could just blunder along in any given situation and not only defeat it, but come away with shield-brothers as easily as he ate or drank. Loki felt he had been cast in a poor light as a betrayer quite unfairly; he had played many tricks on people and they more disliked being caught out than appreciated his wiles, yet he very rarely betrayed a person's trust. If someone asked him to do something then he would get it done, usually by no small amount of effort on his part. It wasn't really betrayal if the person didn't trust him in the first place, yet every special favour Thor has asked of him (usually to get him out of trouble) he had done (often by taking the rap).

Thor sat him carefully on the magnificent bed that dominated the sleeping room and went into the bathing room to draw a bath. As Loki was realising what it meant to sit in some degree of comfort again, he realised Thor had mentioned something very telling; he had called his beloved patriarch 'Odin-king', not the usual 'father' nor had he used the respectful epithet of 'Allfather'. Thor was not a subtle creature and his use of the other term was not a conscious one, but nonetheless told Loki much about the state of the father-son relationship that had often been regarded as the pinnacle of fatherhood on Asgard. Thor clearly still cared for the tortured trickster and Odin did not; had this caused a dived between them?

Loki wondered if this should bring him satisfaction, that he was punishing Odin by muddying the love of his golden son and stealing him away through Odin's treatment of Loki and not by anything the younger god had done himself. As he examined his feelings, free of the pain of the venom and so able to focus his mind more clearly, he found it did not bring him any joy to know that Thor was being hurt like this, to realise that your father is not the man you thought he was and was capable of hurting those he once proclaimed to love. Loki knew Thor was torn with thoughts that if he ever made a serious mistake whether Odin would wreak a terrible revenge upon him as he had done to Loki and his sons instead of just an exile. Loki remembered the time when he wished nothing more than for Thor to feel as he had, to know what it was to fear, mistrust and doubt your father, who was once an unshakable foundation of his life. That time seemed very far away now, on the other side of his torture when his anger seemed to be a physical presence in his blood, growing, swelling and trying to rupture out of him in furious spurts of rage and blood. Part of him felt disappointed with himself that he had not held on to much of it, since it was so very justified, but he felt tired and wished to indulge in some small sort of trust, even if it would blow up in his face later. He would never trust Odin again as long as he lived, and he hoped one day to look into the king's eyes as he paid for his crimes against Loki, but Thor had showed Loki patience when he, by rights, should have given up on the trickster. For this reason Loki allowed the thunderer to carry him out of that cave, to snip the string from his sore lips and help clean the wounds.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I am in the market for a beta to have a read through of the upcoming chapters to make sure I remain coherent now I am getting into the meat of the plot for this part. If you would like to help m e out, pop me a PM, I would be grateful! Thanks x**


	5. The Treating of Wounds

**Chapter five – The Treating of Wounds**

Thor eventually returned to the sleeping chamber, his armour and cape removed in the wardrobe between the bathroom and bedroom, and hair tied back in a scruffy tie.

"I have prepared some shallow water for you first, brother, so that we might clean your…wounds and then you may soak for as long as you desire," he said, hesitating at the word 'wounds'. Loki wondered if Thor felt ashamed to have been party to his Ordeal, to be complicit by not going against the Allfather. He simply nodded in return and offered a continuing expression of neutrality. With all the grace and dignity he could muster, Loki slowly pushed himself off the bed and onto two very unsteady feet. His knees ached and throbbed painfully from so long in the same position and he nearly fell back to the bed before he established his bearings and was able to hold his head up with a semblance of the dignity he held before. He gestured with a look of his eyes to the thunderer's arm and Thor understood immediately, offering his own steady one as a support and they crossed the bedroom and wardrobe before getting to the bathroom. The huge marble tub that was the magnificent centrepiece of the bathing chambers was filled up to the ankles with water and Thor opened a panel at the side so Loki could step in without having to climb in. Simple magic around the panel ensured the water did not flow out of the tub and together they sat on the bench that ran around the edge.

Thor had a cloth and the scissors Frigga had given him at the side of the tub.

"I am going to cut the stitches now, are you ready?" he asked, looking a little ill at the prospect. Loki nodded, trying not to appear too emphatic as he was ready to have the burning string out from inside his skin and digging into the skin around his mouth and the sensitive flesh on his lips. Thor took the shears and leaned closer; Loki tilted his head up a little, but never once took his eyes off of Thor or the shears.

"I will be as careful as I can brother. Try to hold still," he said and brought the gleaming point of the metal up. Loki opened his lips as far as he could without making him tremble from the pain and Thor snipped the strings at each time they crossed his mouth. He was done in seconds and then Loki allowed him to pull the thread from the holes, his hand gripping Thor's shirt so tightly his knuckles turned white. When the last piece of bloodied, rusting string was pulled out, Thor discarded them all in a bin over the other side of the tub and he wetted the cloth in the warm water at their feet.

"The healers gave me special salts to wash into the water that will help with the healing process," Thor explained in a strained voice. He began by washing Loki's face, the months of sweat, tears, and blood that had built upon his face needing to go before the wounds themselves could be properly washed and tended to. Loki seemed to slip into some kind of trace, a conscious state but not entirely responsive; although Thor was sure he was very aware of everything that was being done to him. The trickster looked exhausted and unwilling to fight right now, but Thor had been sure to put the shears well out of his reach, just in case Loki panicked or decided that now was a good time to get his revenge. Thor couldn't be sure what his younger brother was feeling and if he was feeling particularly vengeful towards Thor, but the thunderer supposed that there was no way he would not _not_ care for Loki.

Loki himself was very surprised at Thor's gentle touch, he didn't think the thunderer had it in him to not be a ham-handed oaf who was unable to catch a butterfly without crushing it. In this instance, though, Loki was happy to be proven wrong and sat patiently throughout the treatment. He allowed himself to indulge in the nice feeling that came from someone caring for him, rather like how it had been when Sigyn had come to his side. He had only seen her a handful of times, but it felt as though it had made all the difference to his sanity. He wondered if he should mention her to Thor, but it still felt like too great a risk, even if his brother did not tell the secret to anyone else, Heimdall could well be listening and he did not want to risk anything happening to her because of her kindness. Perhaps he could whisper it to Thor when they were on Midgard and away from the poisonous golden realm.

"Here, would you like to wash your mouth?" Thor said, breaking Loki out of his thoughts with a cloth and hand-held mirror. Loki nodded and took the items. It was a strange feeling, knowing he was able to talk again, but after so long without the ability he felt as though he had lost the desire to say anything that could not be achieved with a gesture or look.

He raised the hand-sized glass to see his face and he shook so hard he nearly dropped it. His face was not how he remembered it to be, long welts of an angry red seared thin trails cross-crossing over his face and his mouth now twisted and distorted into a shape most unfamiliar to him. He had always liked the way he had used to look. It had been so different from Thor, distinguishing him in his own right and such a pride had, inevitably led to some degree of vanity, it was one of the ways he defined himself. Now that had changed, it left him to wonder if the twisted visage he now wore was an apt reflection of the wounds and bitterness held in his soul. Would everyone look upon him now with pity, as though whatever he went on to do would not matter in their eyes, would they seek to only drag him back to this horrific point in time? That seemed to be in the nature of most, to pull a person down to their lowest point if such a thing were exposed whilst standing on their highest pedestal and shoot from there. That mortal woman, the Widow, was an expert of doing such a thing, making him think he was shooting down at her from her position of weakness, when really she was watching him, aloof and above him in the position of greater power.

He dabbed at the inflamed punctures around his mouth, trying to ignore the sting of the warm water and soft cloth to the torn skin, but the dried blood came off with minimal scrubbing and cleaned up fairly easily. He also ran the cloth along the more delicate stretch of skin behind his lips, on the 'exit wounds' as it were and got the stains of blood off of his teeth while he was there; whatever was in the waters was doing an excellent job. All that remained was to press the cloth for a few seconds at a time to his bruised wrists and ankles to offer some comfort to the abused skin there and the much-suffering musculature underneath that had been tightly bound for some long length of time. It occurred to Loki that he would quite like to know how long he had been in that cave for. He hoped it was not as short as a few months because then he felt he would just go mad at the thought of having been in there when it had felt like centuries. It was a place where time had seemed to exist in flux, all relative because on the one hand it felt like years had passed in that filthy cave, but on the other, he could have sworn there were only a few scant seconds between each steady drop.

"How long was I in there for?" he croaked, his first words uttered since the freeing of his mouth and escape from that wretched place. Thor looked up and answered instantly, as though he had counted each day.

"One year and two months."

Loki nodded carefully and decided that wasn't such a disagreeable amount of time and was willing to accept it. He watched Thor clean the cloth in the reddish dirty water at the feet, his hands still bright pink from holding the venom earlier. It was a gesture that Thor had not needed to make, he could have simply helped untie Loki that little much quicker, but the act was a symbol of something greater, of a willingness to suffer for one he loved. The trickster knew he did not have his magic available to him, after all, the Allfather had suppressed it well, but he did have a few natural tricks that he would be able to utilise. He focused on a small puddle of water that had gathered on the bench next to him and touched it with a fingertip. As he concentrated, his hand turned a faint blue and it was hard work to get it to respond to his mental commands and relinquish the pink colour entirely. He did not allow the transformation to creep up his arm and instead kept it localised, but the natural icy coldness of his giant kin was able to freeze the small amount of water he wanted solidified. The moment he stopped thinking so hard, his pink colour flooded back into it like reconnected circulation. The deed was done and he had no reason to go back to that form entirely, or think about how he had come up with a use for his ugly Jotnar form. He picked up the ice and put it in between the layers of a folded cloth, giving it to Thor and pressing the two large hands of the thunderer around the cold cloth. The thunderer hissed with relief as the burning from the venom abated somewhat.

"Thank you," he said with utter sincerity. A mischievous thought chased its way around his head, he couldn't help it; he wondered if Thor was going to be all serious and work, work, work from now on and if perhaps Loki would catch it like some kind of contagion that forced those infected to become serious and mean every word they said.

The rest of the evening passed with little happening and even less said. Loki did not feel the urge to speak any more than he had, and strangely enough, Thor was far too wrapped up on his own thoughts to bother the trickster with many questions or confessions. Loki was very pleased with how this developed and took his long, long bath in mostly comfortable silence. With no need to make time for scrubbing, Loki was able to bathe until he felt sleepy, impressed by the way the tub sensed temperature changes in the water and heated itself when the need arose.

Thor had even offered Loki the use of his incredibly sized bed, which the trickster had declined with a shake of his head and a word or two; he did not feel comfortable with the situation and opted to lay his head down on the long couch of furs in the opposite corner of the room. Thor noticed how Loki slept on the piece of furniture farthest away from the door, where Thor was between him and possible invaders of the sanctuary and how the tortured god slept facing the door he appeared to so dread someone coming through.

"Sleep well brother, as much as you can. You must be fit to travel away from here in the morning," came Thor by way of saying goodnight. He got a few incomprehensible half-sounds, half-snuffling from Loki before he was pulled into sleep himself.

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**Hooray an update :) Thank you massively to my beta PensiveFighter who has kindly taken on the onerous task of proofing this story which is turning into something of ridiculous length XD So, Loki has tentatively chosen to trust Thor for now; baby steps! Next chapter, the glories of Midgard await Thor and Loki! Until then, please let me know what you think :)**


	6. Prison Planet

**Chapter Six – The Prison Planet**

Loki appeared much better after a night of sleep in which Thor thought him more dead than resting, but the big brother had not disturbed the tormented trickster until breakfast had been brought to his chambers. He cut the apples he had requested for Loki into small chunks and allowed his brother to eat silently while he prepared for the day ahead of them; Thor was looking forward to seeing Midgard and his friends again and spending some time, hopefully, with his brother and taking care of him in his post-torture period.

"The king has tasked me with seeing you to Midgard, and I promise you that I will deliver you safely." Loki looked suspiciously at Thor; the thunderer had never been capable of subtlety, but now the trickster was certain his brother was trying to be discreet. Thor was clearly holding back his true feelings, something strange and probably difficult for the warrior, but it was the words he did not say that rang the alarm bells in Loki's mind. It was as though he could not say what he really meant for fear of the walls having ears…or Heimdall's eye was upon them.

An honour guard was present either as a show of support to Thor or to spit on Loki's name and tell him they're glad he's being thrown out of the golden realm, good riddance etc. Loki's face was hard and cold and he feigned apathy for leaving Asgard behind him, even though in his heart he was deeply sorry to leave behind his home, where he had spent his childhood and had been raised to love. In an act of symbolism, they were to be sent forth from Asgard at the still tattered end of the bifrost bridge as a potent reminder of the damage Loki had caused to the realm and he knew Odin would be waiting for them near the edge of the world, the dark energy summoned and ready for them. He had fleetingly wondered how Thor was planning on returning, but he hoped his brother would be staying with him for a little while yet; he didn't think he would last amongst the inane humans raining their judgments upon him as though they had the right. He wondered how they thought that they could come to a reasonable and just sentence when they knew a fragment of the whole picture; when the only evidence they had to go by was the lie they bought hook, line and sinker with his invasion with the Chitauri. The primitives didn't even realise that he had brought he Chitauri to Midgard for slaughter, to erase their repugnant existence from the universe and protect the tesseract.

His carefully maintained façade crumbled when they reached the end of the rainbow bridge, the jeering crowds forgotten behind him as he saw Odin, festooned in his formal armour and seated regally upon his royal steed. Loki snapped. He lunged forward, snarling and roaring curses at Odin. His hands were tied, so there was little he could do to actually harm the king, who steered an uneasy Sleipnir back a few steps. Thor caught Loki by the arms and forced him back, but the trickster fell back on his favourite weapon , his words.

"You monster king!" he spat, eye wide and spitting hatred. "You savage me as part of your sinister punishment as though I had disemboweled your son and worn his entrails on my gorget! You, the greatest liar the nine realms have ever known, banish me to a world of ignorant idiots and you have the nerve to sit there upon the back _of my own son_ and twist the knife you planted so firmly in my back!"

"Loki!" Thor protested, trying to calm his brother and keep him from lashing out at the king without hurting him, however, Loki was not listening.

"How many more of my children are you going to destroy?!" he screamed, his face wild and hot with fury. It had been the one issue that had preoccupied him in that cave longer than any other. He could stand for it if he was punished solely for his actions, but he would always have fight left in him for the good of his children and he could take pride that he would always strive for his beleaguered children where Odin had never fought for him. He had already let Vali and Narfi down by not being there to protect them from the sick fate the Allfather had inflicted upon them, and Loki had always felt a burden of guilt for what had become of poor Sleipnir, reduced to a pack horse. He had known that, while the many-legged stallion could only manifest in a single form, that of the horse, Sleipnir was capable of thought and feeling on the level of the average person and had often demonstrated intelligence in excess of Thor's (perhaps not the highest standard, but one Odin seemed happy to measure worth by).

"Sleipnir…" he said as he struggled uselessly against Thor; he had thinned too much to even move the thunderer's huge arms and he could only notice how Thor had held him carefully so as not to bruise Loki's arms.

"Loki, please," Thor hissed in his ear, and Loki threw one last fraught look to his son who was pawing uneasily at the fractured crystal of the remnants of the bifrost. He snorted softly, hot breath whooshing out of his broad nose and he ducked his head, a little gesture to assure his mother that he would be alright. No matter the inanity and humiliation of being treated solely as a horse when his mind was so much more, Sleipnir understood the heartache it had always caused Loki and sought to comfort him at this moment; there was no telling when they might see each other again. Loki huffed angrily and shook his arms out of Thor's grip.

"Monster-king," he spat at Odin and turned his back on the sovereign of Asgard and refused to look upon him while the Allfather reeled off some dry spiel about Loki's crimes still requiring redress on Midgard and he would be sent forth from Asgard to serve the rest of his sentence. He felt Thor's hand, large and warm, on his shoulder and then the grey, dark energy began to snake around them, creeping in curious tendrils until it snapped around their entire bodies and Loki felt, for a few seconds, that he simply didn't exist. This was certainly inferior to the bifrost, no smooth nearly euphoric flight through the glorious spectrum of the bifrost, just a cold snap out of and into existence; snatched out of the tarnished gold of Asgard and unceremoniously chucked them into the atmosphere of Midgard, high in an empty sky and hurtling towards the hard ground.

Loki immediately snapped the token bonds around his wrists and spread his limbs out, making himself as wide as possible to help slow his descent. A fall to earth was not something he fancied when he was fit and well and was definitely not on his list of things to do in his current state. He hoped Thor would not indulge in some stupidly heroic sense of last-minute timing. He looked around, despite the wind whipping at his eyes and making them water, for the flash of the crimson cloak of the future king. He wasn't sure how Thor got beneath him, but when he looked down to check his fall-progress he saw a flash to red coming up to him and he was caught, roughly taken in the arms of….not Thor. As Loki grabbed the body that had caught him, he did not feel the warm body or armour of his brother, but the cold steel of something familiar and very Midgardian in nature. A look at the mask of the flying man and he recognised the armour of Anthony Stark, the Iron Man.

Panic welled up on him at the unyielding grip around him, like how he had been pinned down before and he lashed out, pushing at the hold Stark had on him, thrashing and flailing wildly to escape. His mouth throbbed and stung at the idea of being held down again, a potent physical memory of what had happened last time he had been overpowered. He panted and screamed against Iron Man until he managed to wrench himself free and he was falling again.

"You are the last thing I expected to find falling out of the sky, Reindeer Games," the tinny voice of Stark came out over the speakers in the suit. He was diving again and heading straight to Loki, until Iron Man was suddenly removed from the picture; Thor had swooped down, pulled by the will of Mjollnir, and thrown the suited hero off his course. Thor gently pulled an arm around Loki and stabilised him from the fall, and wrapped his cloak around his brother for the moment as they headed down towards the earth. Loki found it strange, he was comforted by Thor, by his obvious protection, as he had been when he had all but carried the tortured trickster out of that cave in to the blinding light of Asgard. He found his panic subsiding, bleeding out of him into the rich material that was wrapping him warmly and they approached the platform of a hastily re-built Stark Tower at high speed. They slowed to a controlled speed and by the time they landed heavily, he was feeling better. Iron Man followed suit a few seconds later, flipping the face-piece up to show Thor his wholly puzzled expression.

"Not that I'm not happy to see you , Point Break, because I am, but why is baby bro here?" he asked, his casual tone belying his deep concern for the scene before him.

"Friend Stark, I must speak with you, but know that Loki is not here to cause trouble. I give you my word," Thor announced in his most authoritative and sincere voice.

"You do know that he's not all too popular around here? Invasion of earth with evil aliens killing hundreds of people, that sorta rap?"

"I am aware of my brother's crimes, Man of Iron, I helped to fight him or do you not recall that?" Both Loki and Tony stared at the thunderer, he was bristling with tension and an uncharacteristic abruptness.

"Keep your hair on, man," Tony said, taking a step back.

"May we come inside? I will explain all to you where we are safe from the tiny eyes of your spy-master." Loki raised his eyebrows in surprise, he didn't think Thor was capable of thinking on such a level as to consider the broader implications for the trickster's return and the far-reaching eyes of Shield. Tony looked conflicted for a moment before replying.

"Well, it's against my better judgement, but just bear in mind that the tower's only just finished its reconstruction, don't put any more holes in my walls, doors or windows. Or anything really," he told them and the floor beneath him opened up in a series of panels to reach up with mechanical arms and remove his armour.

Unsurprisingly, Tony went straight for the mini-bar and poured himself a drink as Thor ushered Loki inside and into a seat.

"Jarvis, pull the curtains will you," he asked his AI and the windows tinted slightly of their own accord. The light in the room dimmed a little, but on the outside they had gone black and opaque. "Right, I'm going to hear you out big guy," Tony said, making it clear that he was going out on a limb here and his trust had better be repaid.

"Thank you. I have much to tell you, and…" Thor was silenced by a hand on his arm from his brother. Loki wanted to speak. Tony took the moment their eyes were off of him to give Loki a good look down and was confused by what he saw; the old war-mongerer looked exhausted, thin, and drawn, his face was blotched and marred with some kinds of wounds he could not idenfity. Exactly what had happened on Asgard?

"Brother, are you sure you are up it?" Thor asked, meaning Loki's much-abused voice, which was still hoarse and raw from the year of screaming, from the grating slide of the burning venom down his throat. Even the juice of Idunn's apples had not healed nor soothed it completely and his screaming abuse at Odin not long ago had stretched his voice rather thin. Nonetheless, he pushed himself weakly to his feet, to try and address Stark with a modicum of dignity before his old enemy, but his knees betrayed him and he fell back into the seat with a flump. Tony was intrigued now and absently ran his fingers along the gleaming metal bands around his wrists which so many people had mistaken for a simple fashion accessory.

"Stark, I have been sent here by Odin, king of Asgard, to take your judgment for the war I brought to your world. I have already endured punishment on Asgard, a sentence that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have been tortured and seen my sons eviscerated for my choice of allies and the war I prosecuted against you. I can't explain to you why I did it, but I would have you know that I have no intentions of terrorising this world again. I have no interest in it now." His voice was rasping and croaking towards the end, it was the most number of words he had said with his own voice at any one time since he was last on Midgard, possibly at this very tower. Tony scowled as he did not know what to think or to say.

"What do you want from me then? To not punish you for killing hundreds of innocent people? Is that what the sob story is about?" he demanded, fire in his eyes.

"No, it was so you know that I have already been disfigured and been made to survive two of my sons for this. What else do you want to do to me?" Loki's words were tough, but the light in his eyes, the fight, was dim and dying.

"What do you mean, about your kids?" Tony asked, suspiciously. Loki succeeded in getting to his feet, but did not face the human man, instead he walked to the window and leaned heavily against it, closing his mouth. Thor turned to Tony with a heavy sigh.

"There is an old way of addressing the most severe crimes on Asgard, it is known as punishment by Ordeal. When I took Loki home, his lips were sewn shut and Odin ordered the execution of two of my nephews, Va…" Loki hissed what sounded very much like a sob as Thor nearly said their names aloud. "The entrails of one were used as the chains to bind Loki and the venom from the other's transformation into a snake was used to torture him." Thor held out his hands and Tony saw the redness and blister which had not healed over much yet and the human recoiled in horror.

"The monster-king knew how to attack me in the way that would hurt most," Loki rasped from the window, unable to look either of the other men in the eye. "I'm not telling you this to beg for clemency," he insisted, his pride in pieces, but fragments of it still clung to him.

"Please, friend Stark, I ask you give us some time before Loki must stand before the justice of Midgard. Let him return to health and mourn his sons."

Tony's first reaction to all of this was to yell that it wasn't fair of them to just dump him with such an emotionally-charged and morally ambiguous quandary, but instead he drained the rest of his drink. He got out two more crystal glasses and poured generous measures of amber liquid from the matching decanter on the bar.

"You guys probably won't get much affected by this, but I'm told it's the thought that counts," he said, pushing the glasses towards them.

"Thank you, Stark, but I cannot drink abrasive liquids right now," Loki rasped, glancing appreciatively at the drink. Thor took this to mean that he could have his brother's portion and downed both measures in two sharp knock backs.

"Look, before I say anything, I need some kind of assurance that you're not just going to go all Dr Evil again on me," Tony said, solving the practical problems first before getting too bogged down in the emotional shit storm that was heading his way.

"I know you will not take Loki's word, so take mine," Thor announced, standing straighter as he declared his serious intention. "His magic is sealed away in a place the Allfather had kept secret even from me. It is my charge to watch over him and ensure not only your safety from him, but his safety from you before proper justice is met."

"Yeah but-"

"Tony, he has spent the last year and two months tied down in the corpses of his sons," Thor pressed, quietly (for him) so that Loki at least knew he was trying to be sensitive, but that Thor's volume was never usually in control, despite his best intentions. Tony himself was stumped, because on the one hand there seemed to be a lot of things missing from this assurance, anything solid or tangible that would give cause to contemplate hiding Loki from the rest of the world, if he was so inclined to go against Nick Fury. Yet, Loki's face, from the disfigurements to the broken look in his eyes, was something Tony could appreciate, and Thor had never looked more sincere. Tony remembered seeing the pictures of himself shortly after he had blown his way out of that godforsaken cave in Afghanistan, tortured and mutilated by way of a mechanical crutch cut into his chest. He wasn't going to stand there and compete with Loki over who had it worse, because Odin had really outdone anything he had been expecting. The old man killed Loki's kids? That was beyond the pale, and Stark was begrudgingly having to admit that maybe the mad god had got more than he deserved. He didn't think he would care that much if they'd just sent Loki to the gallows/chopping block/soukyoku, but to execute children for the sins of the their father? That was medieval, and not in the cool knights of the round table kind of way.

"Fine, but where he goes, you go and I bring the rest of the crew in here to keep an eye until we tell Fury," Tony said, before he had the chance to think about it too much; he could regret his actions as emotional and impulsive later as long as he didn't consciously map out his exact decision-making now. Loki visibly slumped, in relief, and continued his gaze out the window at the rapidly repairing city line of New York. He could see the buildings which were still damaged from the destruction the Chitauri had brought with them, some being demolished and most just being covered in scaffolding and restored to their former glory.

"Thank you," he whispered, but it was heard nonetheless.

"Why does Odin keep sending you here anyway?" Tony asked in false annoyance. "Is this some kind of open prison for gods, or a fancy rehab clinic to you guys?"

* * *

**Many thanks once more to Pensive Fighter who is beta-ing for me :) Things are changing for Loki! If only he knew what is ahead of him! Please do let me know what you think!**


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